Café Cubano (Cafecito with Espumita)

Cuban coffee made in a stovetop moka pot, with the first drops beaten into sugar to make a pale foam, the espumita, before the rest of the coffee goes in. Serve in small cups, or pour it into one cup with little plastic cups for sharing and it is a colada.

Untested: not yet made in this kitchen to this exact method. It is here for the Cuban Coffee and the Cafecito page.

Ingredients

• 1⅓ cups (about 315 ml) cold water, or to the line below the pot’s safety valve
• 4 to 5 tablespoons dark-roast, finely ground espresso-style coffee (Café Bustelo, Pilón or La Llave are the usual Miami choices)
• 4 teaspoons to 4 tablespoons granulated sugar (see notes)

Directions

1. Fill the bottom chamber of a 6-cup stovetop moka pot with cold water, below the safety valve.
2. Fill the funnel with coffee and smooth the top with the back of a spoon; do not press it down. Screw on the top tightly.
3. Put the pot over low to medium heat. Put the sugar in a glass measuring cup with a spout.
4. As soon as the coffee starts to come up, pour the first tablespoon or so of coffee over the sugar and put the pot back on the heat.
5. Beat the sugar and coffee hard with a spoon or small whisk for about 1 minute, adding a few more drops if it is too dry, until it turns into a thick, pale tan paste.
6. When the pot has finished, pour the rest of the coffee slowly into the paste, stirring, until blended. A thin layer of foam should float on top.
7. Pour into demitasse cups and serve at once, with a glass of cold water.

Notes

Where this comes from After Ana Sofía Peláez’s “Un Cafecito” (hungry sofia, 2010), whose measurements came from the aunt in charge of coffee at her family’s gatherings, with the beating step as Jamie Silva (A Sassy Spoon) and Lourdes Castro describe it. How sweet Peláez uses 4 teaspoons of sugar for a 6-cup pot; Silva uses 4 tablespoons and Castro ¼ cup, about three times as much. Start at 2 tablespoons and adjust. Where the cooks disagree Peláez says not to press the coffee down and uses low heat; Castro packs it down and uses moderate heat; Silva uses medium-high. Three Guys From Miami put the sugar in the pot’s upper chamber before brewing instead of in a separate cup. Bialetti, the moka pot’s maker, says not to tamp. A colada Pour the whole potful into one cup (a 4 oz to 12 oz foam cup in Miami) and hand it round with a stack of thimble-sized plastic cups. The photo A cup of cafecito with its foam, from Ana Sofía Peláez’s hungry sofia; it is not this recipe’s cup.